'Report claims HUD Secretary Ben Carson made ugly comments about trans people during SF visit' & other Fri midday news briefs

HUD Secretary Ben Carson

HUD Secretary Carson disparaged transgender people during SF visit, report says - I don't trust Ben Carson. I think he did it.

Remember those hugging toddlers from the viral video? One of them has 2 dads. - This is so wonderful. 

Democrats hit Scalia over LGBTQ rights - He wants to be Labor Secretary? He needs to come correctly when it comes to LGBTQ issues.

Merriam-Webster Adds Use Of ‘They’ As Gender Nonbinary Pronoun To Dictionary - This is big.

Democratic candidates will try to engage LGBTQ voters during Friday night forum

On Friday evening, there is going to be a Democratic candidate forum focused solely on the LGBTQ community and our issues. The fact that openly gay candidate Pete Buttigieg will be there is a milestone in itself.

The event, however, will not be unprecedented. The last LGBTQ candidate forum was held in 2007. And as MSNBC points out, much has changed since then.

The last time such an event took place was in November 2007, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama among the participants. In the 12 years since, the country has undergone a revolution in terms of LGBTQ rights and acceptance. 

The mere presence on stage of the openly gay Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a symbol of all that has changed for Democrats since the last forum.

In 2007, the Defense of Marriage Act banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions like Buttigieg’s. Gay Navy officers like Buttigieg were banned from serving openly because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Only two states — Connecticut and Massachusetts — had legalized same-sex marriage, and many more had recently enacted constitutional bans against it. 

The front-runners in 2007 found that supporting same-sex marriage was too risky, and only two moonshot candidates — Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, and Mike Gravel, a former senator from Alaska — endorsed it at the 2007 forum, which was presented by Logo TV and the Human Rights Campaign. Gravel criticized rivals for “playing it safe,” while Kucinich said, “When you understand what real equality is, you understand that people who love each other must have the opportunity to be able to express that in a way that's meaningful." 

Hillary Clinton’s message to the LGBTQ community about her opposition to same-sex marriage? “I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions,” Clinton, then a senator from New York, said at the time. 

Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois, promised that as president he would ensure that existing legal rights “are recognized and enforced” for LGBTQ people. 

Clinton and Obama’s positions leading into the 2008 presidential race were shared by a majority of Americans. Even in 2009, just 37 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage, according to Pew. 

Today, public opinion has swung hard in the opposite direction. Now, a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, according to Pew, and nearly 70 percent back nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, according to the nonprofit research firm Public Religion Research Institute.

As MSNBC points out, marriage is not longer the big issue.

Most candidates — if not all — have publicly supported bans on conversion therapy for minors, ending the Trump administration’s ban on transgender military service, and rolling back the spread of religious “refusal” rules that allow ostensibly religious businesses to decline to serve LGBTQ members of the public. Candidates have also spoken about the need for the Equality Act as a law that would prevent LGBTQ people from getting legally married one day, then fired the next, because of state laws that still do not protect LGBTQ people from employment discrimination.

No doubt, a majority of us will be watching with much interest at what Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Sestak, Elizabeth Warren, and Marianne Williamson candidates propose to do for the LGBTQ community.

'Is a Consumer Protection exec secretly dismantling LGBTQ protections?' & other Thur midday news briefs

The LGBTQ community could be having a problem at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And guess what hate group may be knee deep in it. Like it's knee deep in all anti-LGBTQ drama we've recently seen.

Is a Consumer Protection Exec Quietly Dismantling LGBTQ Protections? - And we got a huge problem: 

A simmering battle over LGBTQ issues is reaching a boiling point at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency partly established by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and tasked with safeguarding taxpayers. The situation comes nearly three months after The Advocate published an exclusive report in collaboration with Allied Progress detailing that the head of the Bureau’s Office of Innovation, Paul Watkins, attempted to hide the fact that he worked as senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a hate group seeking to criminalize LGBTQ people.

This Queer Veteran Is Running For Congress In California - More LGBTQ people in Congress? I love it!

It’s BiWeek. Here are some words you should know.- Happy BiWeek! 

Betsy DeVos To Promote School That Bans Transgender Students And Staff - Color me not shocked. Repulsed, but not shocked.

Arizona ruling show reluctance to label pro-LGBTQ ordinances as anti-religious discrimination

By now, many of us are aware of the ruling in the Arizona case of the studio,Brush & Nib Studios,  which sued to keep from making gay wedding invitations. We are also all aware of just how narrow the ruling was. It didn't overturn a pro-LGBTQ ordinance like the studio and its attorney was no doubt hoping.

Also:

 . . .  in the carefully worded decision, the justices refused to give blanket protection to all businesses — including Brush & Nib — to simply turn away customers because of their sexual orientation. Gould said it leaves open the question of whether the two women could be forced to produce other products, like place cards for receptions, which do not specifically celebrate the marriage.

We are all also painfully aware of how the studio's victory opens the door - even a little bit - to businesses being able to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. No doubt the anti-LGBTQ industry are planning on ways to exploit this decision.

However in the unfortunate great American tradition of going bonkers before processing all of the information, I think that many of us didn't study the details of how the justices reached the divided 4-3 decision because we were justifiably angry at the decision itself.

I am of the belief that lawyer for the studio (Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an SPLC designated hate group because of its attempts to undermine LGBTQ equality and safety via a court of law) may have hurt the studio's case because he was looking to either overturn the LGBTQ ordinance or get a blanket exemption What he did in pursuit of this and how the justices reacted may demonstrate why the ruling was so narrow.

From The Arizona Daily Star:

During legal arguments in January, attorney Eric Fraser, representing Phoenix, conceded the city could not force the women to produce custom invitations with obvious endorsements of same-sex marriage. But he told the justices that they could not refuse to produce all invitations based solely on the sexual orientation of the couple. 

Jonathan Scruggs, an attorney for the alliance, sought a broader legal shield. 

He also introduced several samples of the kind of invitations that Brush & Nib produces. And that apparently paved the way for the justices to decide the issue on narrow grounds — and limit the scope of their ruling.

The Arizona Daily Star went on to say that one of the justices made it a point to say that the studio will not get a blanket exemption from the ordinance for all of its "business operations." Scruggs later claimed said that a broader ruling wasn't his extent.

Still, because he tried to make the case that ordinances protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination can be considered as anti-religious discrimination, the Arizona justices shot that argument down.

Again, this is not to say that this ruling will not be used against the LGBTQ community in the future because it probably will. But it does show that there seems to be a reluctance to declare  that pro-LGBTQ laws and ordinance are automatically anti- religious discrimination.

It's definitely what the ADF wants to happen, but the group is going to need a better way to weave that poisonous thread.

'Don't let Franklin Graham get away with his attacks on Pete Buttigieg' & Wed midday news briefs

Sign this petition if Franklin Graham does not speak for you - Something different as a news brief. Trump supporting hypocrite Franklin Graham is obviously targeting presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg because he is openly gay and has the nerve to talk about his own faith. Folks constantly wonder why Graham and his type seem to bogart the conversation about faith. It's probably because those of us on the left who have faith aren't noticed. Here is your chance, even if you aren't a person of faith. Sign this petition from Faithful America and let everyone know that people like Graham don't have own the patent on faith and religion.

Mormon Leader Reaffirms Church’s Opposition To Same-Sex Marriage - And now that same note, neither does the Mormon Church own the patent on faith and religion. This is their beliefs but who cares what they think. We won marriage fair and square. 

Shawnee Mission district adds LGBTQ protection despite majority speaking against it - Some of the things these folks were saying is just insane. It's not all about sexual intercourse. Luckily folks spoke in favor of it and the protection was passed unanimously.

Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union launch LGBTQ T-shirts after supporting 12-year-old son - I love this!

Nine Times 'The Golden Girls' Brought the LGBTQ Pride

I was never a big fan of  The Golden Girls. I tried and while I found some episodes enjoyable, I can't honestly say that I have a love for the series like some of my other LGBTQ brothers and sisters do.

Still, I can respect how The Golden Girls was ahead of its time when it came to addressing LGBTQ issues. I think this video, Nine Times The Golden Girls Brought the LGBTQ Pride, is a perfect summation of that fact. And like the video implies, you don't have to be insensitive to make people laugh. Too bad a certain Saturday Night Live almost cast member couldn't get that point.

'Arizona anti-LGBTQ ruling is very narrow, but still troubling' & other Tue midday news briefs

The Alliance Defending Freedom is attempting to create this future.

Arizona Supreme Court: Business doesn't have to make invitations for same-sex weddings - The Alliance Defending Freedom failed to get a pro-LGBTQ ordinance overturned even in victory. But it is still a dangerous precedent:

 But in the carefully worded ruling, the justices refused to give blanket protection to all businesses — including Brush & Nib — to simply turn away customers because of their sexual orientation. The decision is limited to the ability of this business and presumably others to refuse to produce wedding invitations and similar items that could be seen as celebrating a same-sex marriage. That leaves open the question of whether business owners could be forced under a city's anti-discrimination ordinance to produce other products for gay weddings, like place cards for receptions, which do not specifically celebrate the marriage.

Rwandan gospel singer who came out as gay says reaction has been ‘horrible’ - Say what you will, the brotha is brave.

New ‘SNL’ Cast Member Fired After Using Racist And Homophobic Slurs - the moral of the story is being vulgar just be to vulgar isn't funny. and it could bite you on the ass. 

‘Pose’ Actress Angelica Ross To Host Presidential Candidate Forum On LGBTQ Issues - Awesome.